Creating Comics As Journalism, Memoir, and Nonfiction

As major universities and professional organizations like the Poynter Institute have begun to examine graphic nonfiction from a critical perspective, new courses are emerging that give student writers and artists the tools to tell their own nonfiction stories in comics form. Nonfiction Comics is the first textbook to bring these tools and techniques together in a single volume. Most novices who first attempt the form arrive at it from a background of journalism or art, meaning they arrive with at least one deficit in the required skill set. Journalists, for example, typically have had little training in illustration. Artists and designers may not know how to conduct interviews or to avoid the potential legal pitfalls of telling the personal stories of real people. This book aims to fill in the gaps providing student journalists, artists, designers, creative writers, web producers and others the tools they need to tell stories visually and graphically.

Based on the authors' popular team-taught nonfiction comics course, Nonfiction Comics teaches readers how to create a graphic nonfiction story from start to finish, providing guidance on:

• how to find the story and how to find and utilize appropriate facts and visuals;
• nonfiction narrative techniques
• artist's tools and techniques
• print, digital, and multimedia production
• legal and ethical considerations

Interviews with well-known nonfiction comics creators--showcased in the book and on the book's companion website--will discuss best practice and offer readers inspiration to begin creating their own work.

Randy Duncan is a professor of communication at Henderson State University. He is co-author, with Matthew J. Smith, of The Power of Comics: History, Form and Culture (Continuum 2009) and co-editor, with Smith, of the Eisner-nominated Critical Approaches to Comics: Theories and Methods (Routledge 2011) and the forthcoming Icons of the American Comic Book (Greenwood Press 2013). In 2009 he received the Inge Award for Outstanding Comics Scholarship. Dr. Duncan is co-founder, with Peter Coogan, of the Comics Arts Conference. He also serves on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Comic Art and the Board of Directors of the Institute for Comics Studies. In 2012 he was recipient of the Inkpot Award for Achievement in Comics Arts.

Michael Ray Taylor is a professor of mass media communication at Henderson State University. He is the author of Cave Passages (Scribner, 1996; trade paper by Vintage Departures in 1997), Dark Life (Scribner, 1999; British edition from Bloomsbury in 2000) and Caves (National Geographic Books, 2001). Taylor has published over 100 feature articles and essays in such venues as Sports Illustrated, Audubon, Outside, Reader’s Digest, and the website of The Discovery Channel; he is also a frequent reviewer of creative nonfiction books for Chapter 16, a literary website.

David J. Stoddard is a professor of graphic and media design with 14 years of teaching experience. Recent comic-related work includes illustrating the nonfiction comic "The Terminal Syphons" for the National Speleological Society news magazine, designing an illustrating book covers for The Power of Comics, and The Cat Manual, art producing a poster for the 20th anniversary of the Comics Arts Conference that ran in the 2012 Comic-Con Annual Souvenir book. He is the recipient of a National Gallery of Art Teacher’s Institute fellowship and a past officer of the Society of Layerists in Multi-Media. His work has been featured in numerous national juried exhibitions; he is also co-producer of a documentary film shown at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival. He has presented papers and sat on panels discussing topics such as the vividness of nonfiction comics at a number of conferences including Comfor (in Passau, Germany), Comic-Con, and The College Media Advisors national conference in New York. His students have worked for Pixar, Insomniac Games and Raven Games, to name a few.